Academic? Grosse Fugue may be. But unemotional? Couldn't be further from the truth. It's one of the most passionate and raw pieces I've ever heard.

I feel like you did a great injustice to your review on the 9th symphony. The 4th movement defines a whole philosophy, Beethoven searching for meaning in this world, the Freude theme isn’t the most beautiful melody but it’s use of bringing the whole orchestra and choir together is so powerful and always leaves me in an unparalleled state. It is one of, if not the, greatest piece of music and collections of sounds I’ve ever heard.

@krisjustin3884

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely correct! I would also suggest that the baritone soloist voice suddenly arising out of the orchestra in the 4th movement is like an unexpected awakening to another era that only Beethoven could have created at that time. This moving moment, within seconds, redefines musical and cultural boundaries and begins its journey across nations, peoples and time itself! It’s radically genius!

@Tylervrooman

Жыл бұрын

The 1st movement is king to me.

@krisjustin3884

Жыл бұрын

@@Tylervrooman Yes, it’s outstanding for sure!

@codonauta

Жыл бұрын

If someone doesn't like the last movement of the 9th, the 1, 2 and 3 ones are unique, not from these world. No one composer after him have composed something even close to that.

@ewoutvm1

Жыл бұрын

Hear hear! The whole 9th symphony is (alongside the Missa Solemnis and Bach's Mathew Passion) one of the greatest of all music for choir and orchestra. The 4th part of it leaves me also in an 'unparalleled state' as you call it so adequately. For me because it is the progress of of all the 3 parts before it, witch makes the whole peace so much more than the sum of its parts. The last part begins by repeating all the previous main themes in a unsure, seeking kind of way, incorporating them in a total frenzy of musical ideas, themes, rhythms and dynamics. So I could never agree on leaving the 4th part out.

To me, the famous Douglas Adams quote captures it quite well: Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe.

I've always loved Beethoven's 2nd movement from the 7th symphony.

@ryanjohnson7245

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely. It hurts my heart.

@vhanzesp

Жыл бұрын

Yes

@tenyako

Жыл бұрын

absolute favorite

@mckernan603

Жыл бұрын

Third movement for me, what a jig!

My jaw dropped when he said the Ode to joy is surely one of the most joyless melodies anyone could ever come up with😂. A moment of shock😅 I love the ninth so much. Especially the part where it goes "was die Mode stre-e-e-e-eng geteilt!" tears everytime... I love the message of the piece so much.

@bc4315

Жыл бұрын

Sounds like you have a soul.

@goobfilmcast4239

11 ай бұрын

It's not sacrilege to compare it to Stairway to Heaven for the sheer teeth gritting it causes me .... overplayed

@presterjohn7789

6 ай бұрын

Yeah. It isn't that he isn't entitled to his own opinion, as baffling as it is. It is that he somehow thinks his opinion is objectively right about perhaps (along with Fur Elise) two of the most beloved pieces of music ever composed by anyone ever. And he uses Leonard Bernstein to substantiate the belief? The guy who stole the middle movements melody to the 'pompous' (as this guy put it) 5th piano concerto for West Side Story?

Beethoven has always been one of my favorites. His music is so rich in his personality, a perfect self-portrait of a complex person.

We've always heard of big composer's merits but we never hear of Beethoven's musical flaws for example. I think a series of these videos would be very intriguing and interesting.

@ewoutvm1

Жыл бұрын

There is a reason we don't hear much about his flaws: He simply didn't have many, or any. I mean, he wrote the Missa Solemnis, do I need to say more?

@Krisenaa

Жыл бұрын

What flaws?

@Traint_Trungdrundringsron

Жыл бұрын

David Bruce kinda wrongfully suggests Beethoven was of poor character or did something egregious in the thumbnail by making Beethoven look like a zombie and then a creepy old 18th century child playing a Casio. The reality is that he was just abused by his father growing up and battled depression the rest of his life.

@InXLsisDeo

8 ай бұрын

That would be extremely presumptuous, if not foolish, of anyone to digress on Beethoven's musical flaws.

The whole point of the 9th symphony is that the very simple melody becomes meaningful and significant, but not out of context, only AFTER you have already heard all the contextual rhythmic variations, and the preludes leading up to it. It's a resolution, like a final chord.

The human connection, the rawness, the transcendentalism, the heart-that's what makes Ludwig van my favourite.

I would absolutely adore a Beethoven for haters video! His music is fantastic, but it being held in such high regard can smudge the jagged human details, and being guided through the musical “faults” (and personal faults as well) would be incredibly interesting.

@CFDavid847

Жыл бұрын

It's funny... no one ever says this about Bach or Mozart. Interesting.....

@jimit.4220

Жыл бұрын

​​@@CFDavid847 uhm mozart is seen by a ton of people as massively overrated. Bach however is indisputably an incredible composer.

@CFDavid847

Жыл бұрын

@@jimit.4220 People who think that Mozart is overrated DON’T KNOW MOZART… and I know a good number of people who don’t particularly care for Bach. My point was that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Beethoven. THAT was my point.

@lukeserrano62

Жыл бұрын

Ronaldo vs Messi for classical music bros!

@ultimateconstruction

6 ай бұрын

​@@CFDavid847People who think that Beethoven is overrated DON'T KNOW BEETHOVEN... My point is that I find that a lot of people trash (undeservedly so) Mozart. THAT is my point.

Great video discounting the blasphemous remarks about the ode to joy melody 😂. I believe it is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written.. how it starts solitarily in the bases and blossoms with more and more instruments coming in, culminating in a march like it’s some kind of revolution; as if more people are swept into the message and taking over the world with it. Why do you dislike it so much Bruce?

@Nooticus

Жыл бұрын

I was going to comment the exact same thing. As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony. Im honestly extremely shocked that David said that because his takes almost always hit the nail on the head, but this video wasn’t the one tbh.

@devostm

Жыл бұрын

I'm not going to try to put words in David's mouth, but I would imagine that he just finds the melody, on it's own, boring. It's almost entirely scalar and diatonic which would make it pretty bland if not for the arranging and orchestration. I think the whole point of his playfully irreverent joke was to show that Beethoven could evoke so many characters and emotions with simple themes - as pieces of a greater whole. In other words, it isn't so much the individual elements of his writing that made Beethoven a great composer, but rather the gestalt of his work. ... that, and as a fellow music educator, I would imagine David has had to endure a million beginner students play this excerpt. Enough to drive any person to insanity. Like "Canon in D" for a cellist.

@deVriesOP125

Жыл бұрын

@@devostm Thats a good point! I was aware he said it jokingly, but still, I can’t imagine how such an iconic melody can even be considered as boring haha. The beauty is in its simplicity in my mind, like it is made especially to remember te words that the music serves. The rhythm of the quartet notes fits like a glove for the words.

Beethoven and Bach are THE two for me. Genius titans of music. World changing.

@Breakbeat90s

Жыл бұрын

True, but they are not the be-all and end-all. Gotta evolve just like they were a result of evolution.

The late period Bethoven is my favourite. So much knowledge and experience multiplied by the torment of being deaf as a composer.

@furtvvanglerr8296

Жыл бұрын

his anger toward his impending deafness was most exemplified in his impetuous middle period. the torment he suffered in his late works was mostly fueled by his poor health and misanthropy

@InXLsisDeo

8 ай бұрын

​@@furtvvanglerr8296I think it would be more descriptive to say that we have a man who has accepted his fate and who knows he has limited time on earth. There is always a sense of resignation of a man who overcomes his fate to come up with the best of what he has to say. He transcends death. He transcends music itself. He reaches ideas that have never been explored before or after him.

There will never be another Beethoven. Unique genius that challenged multiple boundaries and to this day continues to cross national borders and cultures with debates on how to interpret, reinterpret and perform his works of art. Perhaps we could go as far as referring to the Beethoven era! He bridged the classical with the romantic with a voice that will speak for generations to come.

(9:03) -- "What Douglas Hofstadter calls a 'soul-shard', a fragment of the composer's deepest humanity." What a word!

I recently bought the scores to all the string quartets. and the last ones are amazing. devastating. I adore them.

@linkthai1995

Жыл бұрын

Beethoveen's late piano sonatas are also transcendent, I can't even describe them as they are so out of this world.

@pianorover

Жыл бұрын

@@linkthai1995 Op 101 is my favorite! It's perfection to my ears. I'm pretty sure David didn't use the word lightly, but I'm completely sure I do not: it's transcendental. Gorgeous, deeply moving... Very underrated piece in my opinion.

Wow, that sure is a hot take on his 9th symphony. I kinda understand it - when listening to his 5th symphony I sometimes skip the first movement just because I've heard it so many times. But there's a lot more to the 4th movement of Beethoven 9 than just the Ode to Joy.

One of my best musical memories was experiencing Beethoven's 9th symphony with full (actually augmented) orchestra and choir in February 2020 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Little did I know that it was to be my last live music experience for almost 3 years, due to the pandemic.

So glad you covered sonata 32 - I've been addicted to Igor Levit's 2019 recording since I first heard it. It's like the last triumphal pushes against death itself - Beethoven knows Death is there but no, "I'm not done yet!"

@ewoutvm1

Жыл бұрын

It's his last will, sort of.

When I was 14 my grandparents had a cabin in the Blue Ridge mountains near Washington DC. It had all the attributes you might think of when imagining a cabin in the mountains. It was constructed of logs and had a screened porch. There was a wood burning stove and the place held a gentile odor of fires past. There was a magnificent view overlooking the Virginia countryside. At night we would sit on the porch listening to the quail sing "bob white" as my grandfather smoked cigarettes. My grandfather was audiophile and had a very nice stereo and classical music collection there. On one Saturday afternoon visit he poured me a glass of red wine and put the Brahms D major Violin Concerto on the turntable and I was swept away, instantly addicted. This led to a study of the classical guitar and endless hours of listening and more study. What are the maximum number of bars in any of his symphonies which did not include the timpani?

watched your saddest concerto vid...came here to add my $.02 for saddest movement ....IMO, Beethoven’s String Quartet 14 in C sharp minor op 312 Adagio quasi un poco andante ..... each listen takes me to the same place....my 2 minutes of un-joyment....the sense of longing....something has past...not regret....soft pain....exquisite

Thanks so much. Whatever is in vogue, or not in vogue, means nothing compared to the singular compositional genius of Beethoven. Pretty much unbelievable.

The c# minor quartet has been my favorite for many years! A friend once gave me a weird 1960s or 70s LP of an orchestral arrangement of it.

Symphony n°7 in A Major Op. 92 - II, Allegretto nearly always brings me to tears. It's so beautiful.

@dehanbadenhorst1398

Жыл бұрын

It's my favourite symphony, so profound

The Arditti Quartet is devoted to contemporary music, and their first recording included the Grosse Fuge, which Arditti said was a piece of 20th century music that just happened to have been written in 1824. I don't know if "transcendant" is the word to describe what happens in the first movement of piano sonata 23 ("Appassionata"), starting at bar 217. I don't know if there's any word to describe it. It's the most Beethovenian moment I can think of in his whole oeuvre: wild, passionate, fiery, stark, direct. It's literally a show-stopper. The sonata stops doing what it was doing, and just enters another realm. That low C at bar 231 is an incredibly dramatic _note_. How is that even possible? Also, I feel that it's at least a little relevant to what Beethoven is all about that the Allegretto from the 7th symphony is the most beautiful piece of music anyone has ever written.

If I didn’t already love Beethoven to death this video definitely would have jump started me down that path. Excellent work.

This video contains some very interesting information and provides good jumping-off points to promote further listening. I had never knowingly heard Piano Sonata 32 until today. It has some wonderfully moving parts in the Arietta (described perfectly by David as 'transcendent ... out there on the further edges of the universe) which contrast somewhat with other sections (variations?) which I can imagine Jools Holland bashing out or Scott Joplin taking inspiration from. I spent some time listening to Mitsuko Uchida's recording of Sonatas 30, 31 and 32 due to this video. Thank you David. Cheers 👍🏼

Great video, really love the word "Transcendence" One can only imagin what Beethoven felt when he lost his hearing, an ability he exceled and treasured most. With the fate against him, we could feel suffering, despire and sadness through his music. But even so, he didn't give up. And so we hear joy, hope and his final triumph against the fate.

I unironically enjoy ode to joy. Have you ever heard Litszt’s transcriptions for solo piano? You should.

Whenever I listen to the first third of the Grosse Fuge I always feel like I’m watching someone hopelessly lost in endless black smoke, smoke so thick that nothing else is visible. They’re holding a tiny flashlight whose beam reaches no more than a foot in any direction before the smoke smothers it. And, no matter how dark it is, no matter what may be waiting unseen in the smoke, the person runs and runs and runs, as fast as they possibly can towards what they can only hope is a way out - holding the hobbled flashlight straight forward. To imply this piece is an unemotional intellectual exercise is wild to me.

This dude is a chad - smoothly overlooking Piano Sonata #14 🎹👀

Brilliant crash course on Beet-hoven!🎉🎉

Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, performed by Yefim Bronfman at the NY Philharmonic in 2019, was the best performance of anything I've ever witnessed. I'd already been to performances of Beethoven's 3,5,7,9 symphonies, 3rd and 5th piano concertos, many other pieces from Rach, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Mozart, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, but that performance of the 4th piano concerto absolutely blew me away. Glad to hear it highlighted here, although I don't know if I'd agree with some of your characterizations of other works - like other concertos as "pompous," and the ode to joy, live, certainly didn't SOUND sarcastic 😅 great video as always

To me, deaf Beethoven is the most raw and real Beethoven. There's punk rock energy.

The whole of the ninth is great and ode to joy is a great finale.

I always look forward to David's next video! :)

I genuinely think this video deserves millions of views. Appreciate it.

glad im not the only one who is underwhelmed by that ode to joy tune

Thank you!!! I think one of my favourite besides his 6th Symphony has to be his String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 - Adagio quasi un poco andante. It is so sad and peaceful.

@ephjaymusic

Жыл бұрын

please make a "Beethoven For Haters" video!

Thanks for a very informative overview. I have several new things to listen to.

Beethoven’s music should be the main philosophy of our time. It gathers what humans need to reach their most important achievements, peace and hope included

Wonderfully done - the animations really add to the storytelling. It would be fantastic to see more like these!

i loved this! Thanks David. I hope this turns into a series where you talk about other composers :)

As someone who personally isn’t a fan of most of Beethoven’s music, I absolutely adore and have a special connection with the final movement of his 9th symphony. Nothing (and I mean nothing) in this video personally makes me feel emotional apart from the final movement of his 9th symphony. Im honestly extremely shocked with your take on this David because you usually hit the nail on the head with these videos. As a supporter of yours for many many years (almost since you first started uploading) this is the first time I *have* to dislike one of your videos.

I fell in love with David's knowledge and appreciation of music

God the Hagen Quartet is so good… that particular concert at the Mozarteum is especially, well, transcendent.

Excellent analysis. Resplendent in divergence.

more of this for more composers!!! great!

Bring on the Beethoven for Haters video! I spent two years learning his last piano sonata, and agree with your description. It almost seems like he was ready to check out of this world and drift away into the eternity of his next world. Those two years were full of astonishment of how successfully he wrote that piece.

Yay a new DB video! I love your content dude!! Dover edition of the Complete String Quartets on the keyboard.

While Tigran skyrocketed to be in my top 5 favorite musicians/composers, I don't think anyone will ever topple Beethoven from my #1 spot.

[replaces Wild Hair with Wild Eyebrows - fixed it for you, ahem ;) ] Joking aside, one thing... one of your main points is "transcendence" - and yet, you say the worst bit of the 9th is "that tune". Here's the thing, I played "that tune" for my son, around age 4, or 5? (this was years ago - but to this day "the 9th" is one of the few classical pieces he can recognize), and he was instantly smitten. He was moved - by a genre of music he'd never really heard in earnest, without any music theory or experiential knowledge beyond the cartoons of tv and whatever constitutes music learning in kindergarten. This happened almost two-hundred years after it was written. To me, that's transcendence, and I think referring to it as "that tune" undermines your analysis. Honestly, "that tune" has gotten so many people listening to classical music, be it because of an action movie like Die Hard or because of some RomCom feel-good moment, that I actually think you might miss the point of your whole "transcendence" argument. Not really, because in a way it actually proves your point, but I kind of wish scholars of music would also acknowledge things like "that tune" kinda just sometimes kick-ass for the uninitiated - and in this case maybe that's actually a big part of the transcendence you refer to.

Fantastic video

I alwayd love your analysis

Years ago Bethoven opened for me a dor to music Wich doesn't need words to speak. Thank You Maestro!❤

Thanks for this. My favourite has always been the 6th Symphony.

very nice job!

6:30 pathetique is the EIGHTH sonata, the OPUS NUMBER is 13

thank you

Extraordinary.

One of your greatest videos sir, along with the one on the Elgar cello concerto performed by du Pré (have always loved this particular performance)

I kind of feel like the ode to joy melody is completely overshadowed by the gorgeous countermelody.

4:55 laughed at david sneaking in the two early symphonies without mention

I cannot believe you did ode to joy like that

I'm a pretty new subscriber. Incredible content David! Would love to see this "very quick guide to...." as a very long series. Thank you!

I don't know why but for most composers their symphony #9 is my favorite piece. Especially with Dvořák and Beethoven.

Thank you for this. I think you really nailed it. I've loved his music ever since I was a little boy, and thought it was pronounced "Bee Though Ven." Whenever I was alone in the house I used to play my mom's vinyl "Choral Fantasy" so loudly it made the windows shake.

I've got recordings of all his symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, and the violin concerto, but not familiar with some of the chamber music you listed, so thanks for that.

Thank you for this, David. I really enjoy listening to Beethoven. (Other composers are available.) And I really enjoyed your presentation.

Yes the 32nd piano sonata. It's a miracle.

Kinda like him (& Mozart) Kinda like Bach just a tad more. I'm old fashioned. I wish I could remember which Piano concerto it was but there is a place where it starts to swing and almost sounds "jazzy". First time I heard it it really shocked me. . . . I hadn't heard Sonata 32. There does seem to be a bit of Boogie Woogie. I must listen to it. The 16th string quartet sounds like Beethoven is rocking out!

Bach is my favorite composer, but nothing beats late Beethoven

I just love little boy Beethoven at the top of the video, or is that our little Dave at the piano? Even his fingers appear to be playing the right notes. Hats off to your clever video wizard.

The reason I always come back to Beethoven, even though I am not a fan of Classicism, is that Beethoven sounds like... Beethoven. He has a unique voice, and many of his middle and late period pieces are groundbreaking, and there's something 'janky' and raw about it, which it makes a lot of his successors during the 19th century sound bland and formulaic in comparison (at least to my taste). His Grosse Fuge is probably my favourite piece of all time - at least my favourite chamber piece.

@EnginAtik

Жыл бұрын

The Grosse Fuge must be very difficult to perform; it is very hard to find YT videos where the musicians do not get out of sync at one point.

@karlpoppins

Жыл бұрын

@@EnginAtik Yeah, its rhythms are often unintuitive (the first fuge in particular, all syncopations, I can't even hear it properly myself while reading the score) and there quite a few sudden tempo changes. Plus, it's fiendishly technical for all four instruments individually.

I'd love to see a Beethoven for haters video! Not because I particularly hate his music (I don't particularly love it either), but because I'd love to know what you'd consider "bad" composing.

Why do so many Beethoven "samplers" leave out his Christ on the Mount of Olives? The Hallelujah from that piece is spectacular!!!

I've recently discovered the Diabelli Variations. Wow. Fourty years or so ago I discovered the Goldberg Variations (GG). Both have everything. I suspect that there's something powerful in the whole concept of variations. Consider Elgar, Vaughn Williams and Hindemith: their variations also seem to be their most transcendent works.

Nice tshirt David

As a pianist the beethiven sonatas are like a religion to me 😂

The only thing wrong with Für Elise is our overexposure to it. We've merely been subjected to it for too long, and usually by students who can't play the whole thing. That doesn't make it a bad song.

Great and insightful video, your introduction of transcendence is spot on and helps me understand my lifelong (I am 69 now) appreciation of Beethoven's music. Surprisingly enough it also helps me understand my lack of involvement with or even dislike of certain pieces. Most strikingly I always skip the fourth movement of the ninth symphony. I won't even hear the ninth at a concert because the finale just ruins the experience, not in the least by the verbal rejection of the sublime previous movements in the recitativo (Of Freunde, nicht diese Töne(!)). Plodding and pompous indeed.

Some of those pictures made me imagine Ludwig as monster star of a modern horror movie.

Funny - the first time I ever got in contact with the orchestration world some 10 years ago was from a video called "Defending Beethoven", where Thomas Goss argued against the Bernstein clip you showed. It's funny seeing it again after all these years.

If you were a composer who became increasingly deaf you'd probably get grumpy too. Beethoven was well read, had a wide circle of friends and was known for his wit and charm until the final years. The slow movement of the 7th Symphony has always moved me, along with the slow movements of the 4th and 5th piano concerti.

Great Vulfpeck shirt

Beet-Hoven!? I would never think of such a thing!

Totally down with this take on "transcendental" music. For me, more than Beethoven (although I'm not arguing with his quartets or piano sonatas), it's Schubert's late chamber and solo piano music that hits that spot. That feeling that you are connected with the composer's consciousness, that you can see it from the inside. And somehow, this experience is universal to every human, regardless of their culture or the era they lived in. I mean, it does help if you take magic mushrooms while listening to this stuff, but it's by no means essential.

Another great video! I'm an adult piano learner and have intentionally avoided learning Beethoven...No Fur Elise please! But the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata is on my list, Appassionata too~Love the visuals :D I wonder if you keep a box of random paper cuts from all the videos you make...LOL

His 4th Piano Concerto in G was quite unorthodox for its time. Having any concerto start with a solo instrument was highly unusual but perhaps even more attention-grabbing was the key of the orchestra when it started - B major! But Beethoven always had a way of getting everyone back on track (proper key). Even the final movement was a juxtaposition with a strong C major tonality through most of it that, again, Beethoven resolves just in time to its proper key.

Beethoven is my favourite composer by far, even though I think J.S. Bach is more miraculous. I love everything he has written, but despite a lifetime of listen to Beethoven, I still can't tune into to the late quartets and get any pleasure from listening to them. I guess they are beyond the limits of my ability to process music.

An old friend of mine once made the observation that if old Ludwig had written ONLY the slow movement of the Ninth (4:40), he would still be revered today as a great composer. I agree. Oh and btw, if you really pay attention to Lenny's comments (0:53), they're a crock. Beethoven wasn't a great melodist?? See any number of slow movements, esp. of the piano sonatas. Can't do harmony? Late string quartets. Counterpoint? First movement of Op. 131, and Grosse Fuge -- Bach would throw up his hands: "I can't beat that!". Beethoven did have one absolute superpower, though: Form. Nobody can keep ideas going like he could.

Lovely stuff Bruce. Any chance of a list of recommended works that you can add in the description?

❤

This would be a great series with unlimited number of "victims"!

I had this funny idea for a composition for a symphony or whatever. The piece starts with an ending, like cycles through all these cliché endings for pieces, yet it keeps on ending, if you will. And you gotta make it a flawless loop at the end, and then write down on the notation at the repeat mark ''repeat until audience walks away''

As a complete non-musician, most of the technical comments mean nothing to me and go so far above my head that I don't know, until you tell me, whether they are good or bad features. I sometimes wonder whether musicians enjoy music as much as I do, because they hear all the techniques, but I can only hear the sound. As someone once said, when I complained about the noise of scratches and distortion on his old gramophone, I don't listen to the noise, I listen to the music - unless it's Beethoven, then I listen to God.

Please do the Beethoven for haters video. And I’m saying that as someone who absolutely adores his music. He was a complex person and his flaws should be known

I'd love to see Beethoven for haters

I also find his 6th Symphony transcendent.

I loved how you used the image of Pluto's heart as a backdrop for Beethoven's face .It was a powerful visual representation of the contrasts you drew between his music and his behavior. It's fascinating to think about the cold and distant reputation that Beethoven sometimes had, and how that might parallel Pluto's icy environment. At the same time, it's clear that his music has a warmth and transcendent quality that can touch people's hearts, just like the heart-shaped feature on Pluto. I have one question, though. In the beginning of the video and the description, you mentioned that the final movement of the 9th symphony is apparently sarcastically named "The Ode to Joy".' I am not sure if you were being serious or not ,could you clarify if this was meant as a joke or if there is actually some irony to the title i cannot understand ? I completely agree with you that the 2nd movement is better and probably more joyful than the final movement.

@1258-Eckhart

Жыл бұрын

I'm not sure if this helps. but Friedrich Schiller certainly meant or intended the dedication to joy - his poem is entitled "An die Freude", which the poet imagines as a "daughter of Elisium", It's hard to see any sarcasm there. Beethoven's music is another matter, but even if David's point is well-taken, one surefire way of warming up an orchestral choir is to get it to bang out the Ode to Joy - afterwards beaming faces all round. So it actually works somehow.

@livtaspa13

Жыл бұрын

​@@1258-Eckhart It's interesting to hear that the Ode to Joy is a surefire way to warm up an orchestral choir.